I THOUGHT that probably my connection with Cranford would cease after Miss
Jenkyns's death; at least, that it would have to be kept up by correspondence,
which bears much the same relation to personal intercourse that the books of
dried plants I sometimes see ("Hortus Siccus," I think they call the thing) do
to the living and fresh flowers in the lines and meadows. I was pleasantly
surprised, therefore, by receiving a letter from Miss Pole (who had always come
in for a supplementary week after my annual visit to Miss Jenkyns) proposing
that I should go and stay with her; and then, in a couple of days after my
acceptance, came a note from Miss Matty, in which, in a rather circuitous and
very humble manner, she told me how much pleasure I should confer if I could
spend a week or two with her, either before or after I had been at Miss Pole's;
"for," she said, "since my dear sister's death I am well aware I have no
attractions to offer; it is only to the kindness of my friends that I can owe
their company."
Of course I promised to come to dear Miss Matty as soon as I had ended my
visit to Miss Pole; and the day after my arrival at Cranford I went to see her,
much wondering what the house would be like without Miss Jenkyns, and rather
dreading the changed aspect of things. Miss Matty began to cry as soon as she
saw me. She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my call. I comforted
her as well as I could; and I found the best consolation I could give was the
honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the deceased. Miss Matty
slowly shook her head over each virtue as it was named and attributed to her
sister; and at last she could not restrain the tears which had long been
silently flowing, but hid her face behind her handkerchief and sobbed aloud.
"Dear Miss Matty," said I, taking her hand - for indeed I did not know in
what way to tell her how sorry I was for her, left deserted in the world. She
put down her handkerchief and said -
"My dear, I'd rather you did not call me Matty. She did not like it; but I
did many a thing she did not like, I'm afraid - and now she's gone! If you
please, my love, will you call me Matilda?"
I promised faithfully, and began to practise the new name with Miss Pole that
very day; and, by degrees, Miss Matilda's feeling on the subject was known
through Cranford, and we all tried to drop the more familiar name, but with so
little success that by-and-by we gave up the attempt.
My visit to Miss Pole was very quiet. Miss Jenkyns had so long taken the lead
in Cranford that now she was gone, they hardly knew how to give a party. The
Honourable Mrs Jamieson, to whom Miss Jenkyns herself had always yielded the
post of honour, was fat and inert, and very much at the mercy of her old
servants. If they chose that she should give a party, they reminded her of the
necessity for so doing: if not, she let it alone. There was all the more time
for me to hear old-world stories from Miss Pole, while she sat knitting, and I
making my father's shirts. I always took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford;
for, as we did not read much, or walk much, I found it a capital time to get
through my work. One of Miss Pole's stories related to a shadow of a love affair
that was dimly perceived or suspected long years before.
Presently, the time arrived when I was to remove to Miss Matilda's house. I
found her timid and anxious about the arrangements for my comfort. Many a time,
while I was unpacking, did she come backwards and forwards to stir the fire
which burned all the worse for being so frequently poked.
"Have you drawers enough, dear?" asked she. "I don't know exactly how my
sister used to arrange them. She had capital methods. I am sure she would have
trained a servant in a week to make a better fire than this, and Fanny has been
with me four months."
This subject of servants was a standing grievance, and I could not wonder
much at it; for if gentlemen were scarce, and almost unheard of in the "genteel
society" of Cranford, they or their counterparts - handsome young men - abounded
in the lower classes. The pretty neat servant-maids had their choice of
desirable "followers"; and their mistresses, without having the sort of
mysterious dread of men and matrimony that Miss Matilda had, might well feel a
little anxious lest the heads of their comely maids should be turned by the
joiner, or the butcher, or the gardener, who were obliged, by their callings, to
come to the house, and who, as ill-luck would have it, were generally handsome
and unmarried. Fanny's lovers, if she had any - and Miss Matilda suspected her
of so many flirtations that, if she had not been very pretty, I should have
doubted her having one - were a constant anxiety to her mistress. She was
forbidden, by the articles of her engagement, to have "followers"; and though
she had answered, innocently enough, doubling up the hem of her apron as she
spoke, "Please, ma'am, I never had more than one at a time," Miss Matty
prohibited that one. But a vision of a man seemed to haunt the kitchen. Fanny
assured me that it was all fancy, or else I should have said myself that I had
seen a man's coat-tails whisk into the scullery once, when I went on an errand
into the store-room at night; and another evening, when, our watches having
stopped, I went to look at the clock, there was a very odd appearance,
singularly like a young man squeezed up between the clock and the back of the
open kitchen-door: and I thought Fanny snatched up the candle very hastily, so
as to throw the shadow on the clock face, while she very positively told me the
time half-an-hour too early, as we found out afterwards by the church clock. But
I did not add to Miss Matty's anxieties by naming my suspicions, especially as
Fanny said to me, the next day, that it was such a queer kitchen for having odd
shadows about it, she really was almost afraid to stay; "for you know, miss,"
she added, "I don't see a creature from six o'clock tea, till Missus rings the
bell for prayers at ten."
However, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave and Miss Matilda begged me to
stay and "settle her" with the new maid; to which I consented, after I had heard
from my father that he did not want me at home. The new servant was a rough,
honest-looking, country girl, who had only lived in a farm place before; but I
liked her looks when she came to be hired; and I promised Miss Matilda to put
her in the ways of the house. The said ways were religiously such as Miss
Matilda thought her sister would approve. Many a domestic rule and regulation
had been a subject of plaintive whispered murmur to me during Miss Jenkyns's
life; but now that she was gone, I do not think that even I, who was a
favourite, durst have suggested an alteration. To give an instance: we
constantly adhered to the forms which were observed, at meal-times, in "my
father, the rector's house." Accordingly, we had always wine and dessert; but
the decanters were only filled when there was a party, and what remained was
seldom touched, though we had two wine- glasses apiece every day after dinner,
until the next festive occasion arrived, when the state of the remainder wine
was examined into in a family council. The dregs were often given to the poor:
but occasionally, when a good deal had been left at the last party (five months
ago, it might be), it was added to some of a fresh bottle, brought up from the
cellar. I fancy poor Captain Brown did not much like wine, for I noticed he
never finished his first glass, and most military men take several. Then, as to
our dessert, Miss Jenkyns used to gather currants and gooseberries for it
herself, which I sometimes thought would have tasted better fresh from the
trees; but then, as Miss Jenkyns observed, there would have been nothing for
dessert in summer-time. As it was, we felt very genteel with our two glasses
apiece, and a dish of gooseberries at the top, of currants and biscuits at the
sides, and two decanters at the bottom. When oranges came in, a curious
proceeding was gone through. Miss Jenkyns did not like to cut the fruit; for, as
she observed, the juice all ran out nobody knew where; sucking (only I think she
used some more recondite word) was in fact the only way of enjoying oranges; but
then there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone
through by little babies; and so, after dessert, in orange season, Miss Jenkyns
and Miss Matty used to rise up, possess themselves each of an orange in silence,
and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges.
I had once or twice tried, on such occasions, to prevail on Miss Matty to
stay, and had succeeded in her sister's lifetime. I held up a screen, and did
not look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the noise very offensive; but
now that she was left alone, she seemed quite horrified when I begged her to
remain with me in the warm dining-parlour, and enjoy her orange as she liked
best. And so it was in everything. Miss Jenkyns's rules were made more stringent
than ever, because the framer of them was gone where there could be no appeal.
In all things else Miss Matilda was meek and undecided to a fault. I have heard
Fanny turn her round twenty times in a morning about dinner, just as the little
hussy chose; and I sometimes fancied she worked on Miss Matilda's weakness in
order to bewilder her, and to make her feel more in the power of her clever
servant. I determined that I would not leave her till I had seen what sort of a
person Martha was; and, if I found her trustworthy, I would tell her not to
trouble her mistress with every little decision.
Martha was blunt and plain-spoken to a fault; otherwise she was a brisk,
well-meaning, but very ignorant girl. She had not been with us a week before
Miss Matilda and I were astounded one morning by the receipt of a letter from a
cousin of hers, who had been twenty or thirty years in India, and who had
lately, as we had seen by the "Army List," returned to England, bringing with
him an invalid wife who had never been introduced to her English relations.
Major Jenkyns wrote to propose that he and his wife should spend a night at
Cranford, on his way to Scotland - at the inn, if it did not suit Miss Matilda
to receive them into her house; in which case they should hope to be with her as
much as possible during the day. Of course it MUST suit her, as she said; for
all Cranford knew that she had her sister's bedroom at liberty; but I am sure
she wished the Major had stopped in India and forgotten his cousins out and out.
"Oh! how must I manage?" asked she helplessly. "If Deborah had been alive she
would have known what to do with a gentleman- visitor. Must I put razors in his
dressing-room? Dear! dear! and I've got none. Deborah would have had them. And
slippers, and coat-brushes?" I suggested that probably he would bring all these
things with him. "And after dinner, how am I to know when to get up and leave
him to his wine? Deborah would have done it so well; she would have been quite
in her element. Will he want coffee, do you think?" I undertook the management
of the coffee, and told her I would instruct Martha in the art of waiting - in
which it must be owned she was terribly deficient - and that I had no doubt
Major and Mrs Jenkyns would understand the quiet mode in which a lady lived by
herself in a country town. But she was sadly fluttered. I made her empty her
decanters and bring up two fresh bottles of wine. I wished I could have
prevented her from being present at my instructions to Martha, for she
frequently cut in with some fresh direction, muddling the poor girl's mind as
she stood open-mouthed, listening to us both.
"Hand the vegetables round," said I (foolishly, I see now - for it was aiming
at more than we could accomplish with quietness and simplicity); and then,
seeing her look bewildered, I added, "take the vegetables round to people, and
let them help themselves."
"And mind you go first to the ladies," put in Miss Matilda. "Always go to the
ladies before gentlemen when you are waiting."
"I'll do it as you tell me, ma'am," said Martha; "but I like lads best."
We felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this speech of Martha's, yet I
don't think she meant any harm; and, on the whole, she attended very well to our
directions, except that she "nudged" the Major when he did not help himself as
soon as she expected to the potatoes, while she was handing them round.
The major and his wife were quiet unpretending people enough when they did
come; languid, as all East Indians are, I suppose. We were rather dismayed at
their bringing two servants with them, a Hindoo body-servant for the Major, and
a steady elderly maid for his wife; but they slept at the inn, and took off a
good deal of the responsibility by attending carefully to their master's and
mistress's comfort. Martha, to be sure, had never ended her staring at the East
Indian's white turban and brown complexion, and I saw that Miss Matilda shrunk
away from him a little as he waited at dinner. Indeed, she asked me, when they
were gone, if he did not remind me of Blue Beard? On the whole, the visit was
most satisfactory, and is a subject of conversation even now with Miss Matilda;
at the time it greatly excited Cranford, and even stirred up the apathetic and
Honourable Mrs Jamieson to some expression of interest, when I went to call and
thank her for the kind answers she had vouchsafed to Miss Matilda's inquiries as
to the arrangement of a gentleman's dressing-room - answers which I must confess
she had given in the wearied manner of the Scandinavian prophetess -
"Leave me, leave me to repose."
And NOW I come to the love affair.
It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had offered
to Miss Matty long ago. Now this cousin lived four or five miles from Cranford
on his own estate; but his property was not large enough to entitle him to rank
higher than a yeoman; or rather, with something of the "pride which apes
humility," he had refused to push himself on, as so many of his class had done,
into the ranks of the squires. He would not allow himself to be called Thomas
Holbrook, ESQ.; he even sent back letters with this address, telling the
post-mistress at Cranford that his name was MR Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He
rejected all domestic innovations; he would have the house door stand open in
summer and shut in winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant. The
closed fist or the knob of a stick did this office for him if he found the door
locked. He despised every refinement which had not its root deep down in
humanity. If people were not ill, he saw no necessity for moderating his voice.
He spoke the dialect of the country in perfection, and constantly used it in
conversation; although Miss Pole (who gave me these particulars) added, that he
read aloud more beautifully and with more feeling than any one she had ever
heard, except the late rector.
"And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?" asked I.
"Oh, I don't know. She was willing enough, I think; but you know Cousin
Thomas would not have been enough of a gentleman for the rector and Miss
Jenkyns."
"Well! but they were not to marry him," said I, impatiently.
"No; but they did not like Miss Matty to marry below her rank. You know she
was the rector's daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter Arley: Miss
Jenkyns thought a deal of that."
"Poor Miss Matty!" said I.
"Nay, now, I don't know anything more than that he offered and was refused.
Miss Matty might not like him - and Miss Jenkyns might never have said a word -
it is only a guess of mine."
"Has she never seen him since?" I inquired.
"No, I think not. You see Woodley, Cousin Thomas's house, lies half-way
between Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made Misselton his market-town
very soon after he had offered to Miss Matty; and I don't think he has been into
Cranford above once or twice since - once, when I was walking with Miss Matty,
in High Street, and suddenly she darted from me, and went up Shire Lane. A few
minutes after I was startled by meeting Cousin Thomas."
"How old is he?" I asked, after a pause of castle-building.
"He must be about seventy, I think, my dear," said Miss Pole, blowing up my
castle, as if by gun-powder, into small fragments.
Very soon after - at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda - I had the
opportunity of seeing Mr Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with his
former love, after thirty or forty years' separation. I was helping to decide
whether any of the new assortment of coloured silks which they had just received
at the shop would do to match a grey and black mousseline-delaine that wanted a
new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don Quixote-looking old man came into the shop
for some woollen gloves. I had never seen the person (who was rather striking)
before, and I watched him rather attentively while Miss Matty listened to the
shopman. The stranger wore a blue coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and
gaiters, and drummed with his fingers on the counter until he was attended to.
When he answered the shop-boy's question, "What can I have the pleasure of
showing you to-day, sir?" I saw Miss Matilda start, and then suddenly sit down;
and instantly I guessed who it was. She had made some inquiry which had to be
carried round to the other shopman.
"Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsenet two-and-twopence the yard"; and Mr
Holbrook had caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.
"Matty - Miss Matilda - Miss Jenkyns! God bless my soul! I should not have
known you. How are you? how are you?" He kept shaking her hand in a way which
proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as if to himself,
"I should not have known you!" that any sentimental romance which I might be
inclined to build was quite done away with by his manner.
However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and then
waving the shopman with the unpurchased gloves on one side, with "Another time,
sir! another time!" he walked home with us. I am happy to say my client, Miss
Matilda, also left the shop in an equally bewildered state, not having purchased
either green or red silk. Mr Holbrook was evidently full with honest loud-
spoken joy at meeting his old love again; he touched on the changes that had
taken place; he even spoke of Miss Jenkyns as "Your poor sister! Well, well! we
have all our faults"; and bade us good-bye with many a hope that he should soon
see Miss Matty again. She went straight to her room, and never came back till
our early tea- time, when I thought she looked as if she had been crying.
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